Don't Your Sisters Talk to You Like This?

Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, by Linda Berdoll. Chapter 2: So what happened?

We open in flashback, beginning one can surmise shortly after the end of Pride and Prejudice itself but before our heroes' fateful wedding night of bruises and no talking. Elizabeth and Darcy are having trouble finding time alone, and are tentatively stumbling their way towards displays of affection. The family is thrown into some disorder when Lydia unexpectedly arrives for a visit, without her husband.

Lydia has apparently come partly to curry favor with her soon-to-be wealthy older sisters, hoping that they will remember her (and Wickham) when they feel like giving money away or something. This does not seem to be a very sophisticated plan.

The plan, at this point, mostly consists of cornering Elizabeth and Jane and telling them how great her sex life is (she is also, apparently, lying) and how much they have to look forward to. Jane is terrified. Elizabeth is intrigued in spite of herself. Lydia uses many euphemisms, because Linda Berdoll had a thesaurus.

Inaccuracies: What was obviously wrong here?

I want to talk in general about timeline problems. The issue in this chapter is comparatively minor, but the timeline will become more convoluted as the book continues, and a lot of the issues originate here.

Now. I would never dream of saying that Linda Berdoll did not actually read Pride and Prejudice. I think she probably did read it at least once (I think she saw the Colin Firth miniseries more than once). I will say that it doesn’t look like she read Pride and Prejudice with the greatest attention to detail. By attention to detail I don’t mean keeping track of how often Darcy smiles (it’s a lot, no brooding at all) or the exact number of lines each character has. But if you’re writing a book based on a book, you should keep track of when things happen so you don't screw yourself up later.

It is stated in chapter two that Lydia’s marriage preceded her sisters’ engagements by six months:

Those [friends]she had soon wearied of hearing how she, the youngest of five sisters, had usurped the title of ranking daughter by becoming the first wed. Her own consideration of that coup paled when she read the letter telling of the engagements of both Jane and Elizabeth, for she had only bested them by six months.

If you want to be forgiving you can read it as her marriage preceded their marriages by six months (this would be a strange way to read it, but you could do it). But look at the general timeline of the Pride and Prejudice, here.

This is only an approximation, made by a very attentive reader; we can’t be sure of the year Pride and Prejudice takes place. But based on several references to dates and seasons and lengths of time throughout the novel, we can be sure at least of the approximate months.

Lydia elopes while Elizabeth is travelling with her aunt and uncle, sometime in the late summer. She runs off in early August at the very latest. She is missing and unmarried for several weeks, stays with the Gardiners for two weeks after she is found and the marriage is arranged, and she and Wickham are married before the end of August. We know this because when they visit Longbourn immediately after their marriage, Lydia looks forward to Wickham’s success at shooting on September 1st.

Bingley and Darcy come back to Herfordshire just a few weeks later, in mid-September: we know it's not later than this because Mr. Bennet mentions that he first visited Bingley a year before. Both couples are engaged within a few more weeks, putting us in early October. At this point, Lydia has been married for about a month and a half. Where did six months come from?

We can’t say based on Pride and Prejudice exactly how long Elizabeth's engagement was; its length could account for Lydia being married six months. But Berdoll says the engagement only lasted two months, which would make Lydia only married for three and a half (four at most) when her sisters get married. Also, in Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth mentions inviting the Gardiners to Pemberley for Christmas; that means she would have to be married before then. If she got married Christmas Day it would still only make Lydia married for four months when it happens.

It’s an easy mistake to make, but it’s a significant problem. Write anything, and you ought to pay attention to when your work is taking place. Pay attention to the fact that Lydia gets married in late summer and Elizabeth gets engaged in the autumn. All of this matters. Soon you’re going to have Mr. Darcy suggesting a picnic and sex outside in December in the north of England (uh, spoiler alert).

Purple Prose: what's the worst written line in the chapter?

All the sex stuff is the worst, (and will continue to be the worst just you wait). There are a lot of candidates for worst sentence, but apart from that I want to point out this little anachronism: “Copulation as recreation would have bumfuzzled Mrs. Bennet.” Now, leave aside the interpretation of Mrs. Bennet, with which I disagree but is still an interpretation no less valid than mine. Bumfuzzled?

This is the problem with overly relying on your thesaurus and using words you don’t actually know. Not everybody knows every word! This is okay. But “bumfuzzled” is a word that, while it might sound old (because it’s weird and nobody uses it) actually originates in the southern US around 1900. I left my copy of the OED in my other purse at home but here’s a handy slate article.

So, no, Mrs. Bennet would not have been “bumfuzzled” because that word was not in use. Okay, the narrator is using it, but why? Why not say that the subject would have baffled her? You can even keep the alliteration that way!

The worst sentence though is this:

“I mean,” retorted Lydia, “that if you allow Mr. Bingley to kiss you too ardently, he will be aroused to such lust his loins will ache and his engorged lance will burst from his nether garments to ravish you!”

There’s more that might be worse than that but I’m literally too embarrassed to type it out.

Asshole Award: who acts the most like a jerk or the least like themselves?

It’s Lydia. She gets the most page time and is both obnoxious and (this is impressive) obnoxious in a way Real Lydia was not. This could go partly in the inaccuracies section, but Berdoll should have paid more attention to the book: Lydia could, in fact, “offer her nuptial congratulations by post.” Austen quotes the letter in full and Lydia only carelessly asks for money. She doesn’t come at all; Newcastle to Hertfordshire was a long journey, and long trips like that cost money, which Lydia and Wickham didn’t have, and they (no matter what Linda says) had only been married for a month or two. Lydia even says to her mother that she won’t see her for “years” when they part in Pride and Prejudice.

This points to a mischaracterization of Lydia (and it doesn’t count for much, since Real Lydia is genuinely an asshole). Real Lydia is selfish, and dumb, but she’s also a teenager, and most of her selfishness involves not giving anything any thought. She’s a kid who will tell you she’s treating you to lunch but you’ll have to pay because she already spent everything. She’s an idiot, but she doesn’t try to hurt anyone. And I think we can understand from the end of Pride and Prejudice that she loves Wickham for a little longer than two months (and it is two months, even if Linda tries to say it’s six). She wouldn’t pull this shit simply because she wouldn’t care enough. She’d see no problem in telling them all about sex when she came back to Longbourn after being married if she were going to do it at all. I bet she did tell Kitty.

Hey Look, a Lower Class Person: how are class differences portrayed in this chapter?

No appearances that I can see, but strictly family scenes. A welcome reprieve.

Hey, a Plot: does anything in this chapter move the story forward?

Well our main plot is: Darcy and Elizabeth do it all over Pemberley, so this does manage to set that up in some respect. We learn that though Elizabeth is very interested in sex, poor Jane is very much not. Which also strikes me as not quite right; I can buy Elizabeth being sexually curious in the right circumstances (though she gives a lot more thought to propriety than Pod Elizabeth will in the coming chapters). I can’t, however, quite accept Jane being quite this meek about it. Pretty meek, sure, but also happy to go along with whatever her husband wants. This is Georgian (possibly Regency) England, not Victorian England. This will also be a plot point going forward.